The USA has been aiding Japan’s quake ravaged north with large deployments of troops, aircraft and carriers as part of “Operation Tomodachi,” and the extent of their efforts has earned the undying gratitude of Japanese in the affected regions and beyond.

Some of the scenes at US relief operations, where the US navy and air force (here mostly the USS Ronald Reagan and the Black Knights) and took a prominent role:

Even 2ch is moved:

“As expected of our friends!”

“USA! USA!”

“They’re so handsome. It’s like a movie, really.”

“I could cry. We’re truly grateful, America!”

“Sorry we were so hard-hearted. It seems America was our only friend after all.”

“They are really used to this stuff, aren’t they?”

“They really are tool cool. What is this sense of security I feel…”

“Please make Japan a state.”

“Guys who have seen actual combat are in a different class.”

“They are heroes, seriously.”

“As expected of our master! Japan will remain by your side as your Pochi forever!”

“Rather than seeing our government’s incomprehensible press conferences, seeing the US army on the ground is much more reassuring.”

“The SDF isn’t bad, but seeing this you can really tell how badly Japanese lack decisiveness.”

“I got wet when I saw this on the news. America can have me any time!”

“They seriously look too cool! USA!! USA!! USA!! USA!!”

“The USA is truly Japan’s ally!”

“If God made the world into a feature film America would be the protagonist.”

“Americans may be stupidly optimistic but they are certainly brave and believe in justice.”

“It’s amusing that we can rely on another nation’s armed forces more than we can our own government…”

“I cried!”

Japan for its part has deployed virtually the entire SDF into the region, and its civilian sector is certainly no slouch at rebuilding either:

Once 2chers are back to pirating their neighbors wireless connection instead of sitting dangerously close to a nuclear meltdown in an internet cafe somewhere, they'll be back to their Xenophobic anti everyone else in the world ways. You'll see, everything will be right as rain soon enough.

It's nice to see gratitude at all.
I remember a lot of ingrate nations just taking our aid for granted, snapping up food whilst simultaneously flipping us the bird. Burma/Myanmar comes foremost to mind.

I'm a Burmese. And I can definitely assure you the Burmese people are really grateful for what USA has done for us. Burmese are not ingrates by history, as far as I've understood; recognizing gratitude is part of our culture and courtesy, in fact. (Not to say there won't be an occasional bastard, but they're not worth the attention.)

@ Denshousha
"Burma/Myanmar comes foremost to mind."
I'm really sorry and embarrassed to hear that this is the kind of impression it made on our willing benefactors. The thing is, the government filtered the aid materials repeatedly, and they pinched away the best/better stuff throughout the process. The victims got, like, noodle packets, perhaps; at the same time, their act of theft pretty much revealed itself when some of the thieves ate too much of the high-energy food included in the aid materials and started having health complications. "Serves them right." barely suffices in this case.

Since the government is the only "public" face Burma has, I'm pretty sure the ungratefulness came from the government people, maybe to make the aiders turn away in disgust, and definitely by their nature.

In any case, I can assure you that most of the Burmese people only want to live in peace without fear, and they're hoping the US Army would storm the new capital one day and bring those scum to justice. Though that's a high hope, considering China and Russia won't agree with that as long as they're getting sold resources by the Junta.

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Anon 15:22
"The goverment is the people and reflects the general thoughts of that country."

That might be the case in a democratic nation. Burma, no matter how much the government insists, isn't one; they're dictators, and very very dumb ones at that. Thanks to Anon 15:44 for clarifying.

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For detailed Nargis disaster news, go to Irrawaddy.org and check the news section around 2008 April/May and a couple of following months. I'm sure international news channels covered about the disaster, but there's only so much they could have shown on TV with the time restraints.

"Well the state is made of people.
The goverment is the people and reflects the general thoughts of that country."

Haha how retarded are you? Have you never heard of a dictatorship? What do you think is happening in the middle east right now? All these uprisings and revolutions? American government was REAL chummy with the "president" of Egypt and look what happened to him. Go back to school kid.

No worries Drakos.Amatras.
I think the Burmese government was the most recent example. Honestly I try not to linger on these things and I don't really take it personally.

Better examples, (maybe?)

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Okinawa just wrote up an anti-American piece shortly after this was published.
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I remember during Operation Desert Storm, Kuwait requested military aid to oust Iraqi invaders from their country. Then when our soldiers arrived they made our troops remove the American flags from their uniforms because it offended them. Instead of telling them to take a hike, we complied.

i think you are talking about Haiti , retards were building baricades out of dead bodies to prottest that aid wasnt getting quick enough . Strangly they failed to realize that blocking roads wont get it done any sooner .

The Navy takes on a lot of interesting humanitarian assignments. I remember the US moved in an aircraft carrier full of supplies just to assist a cruise ship that had a power failure out at sea. I thought that was really cool. Probably kind of scary looking for the ship it moved in on, but still cool. xD

Any US president would have done the same, no matter how shitty. And the military commanders in Japan would have probably done what they could even if you had a president who was enough of an asshole to disapprove of it. For one thing, it's the right thing to do. For another, if the US military doesn't want to get tossed out of Japan, they have to help.

And the Air Force brought over the Air Force, and a lot of the Army, too. And the Marines, despite the backronym about the Navy. (My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment.) The Navy carries things that are too big to carry in planes.

Lucky coincidence, I guess? It's not like it's there for the sole purpose of protecting Japan from nature. And it's awkward how Sankaku only covers the U.S. efforts and completely forgets about everyone else's input.

I won't be surprised if 10 years from now western history books will preach America as the saviour of Japan from a M9.0 apocalypse. Even though, in reality, all they did was deploy some military vehicles that happened to be close-by since the end of WWII.

Doyt... you have no idea of the extent of self-loathing in Western History books do you?

Western History books since WWI and especially after the 60s go to lengths to criticize the West and raise everything else to the skies.
If anything is akward its Artefact, but he's a fun and fairly honest if biased guy so I don't mind.

The U.S. has several bases in Japan. How bad would it look if they just sat around after this earthquake and not offer any help when they are supposed to be there to protect Japan (albeit not from the damage of a natural disaster)?

Well, if Japan has its own military power, probably japanese troops will be deployed and not american troops from the american bases here in japan. It just so happened that the americans made a rule that japan can't build its own military force, that's why there are only SDF, and SDF is just a small number to cover all the places affected by the tragedy.. It's good that they really are on to it... support I mean.. :) but if war breaks out sometime next year or the coming years because of the thoughts of other nut cracks, "it's end of the world! let's conquer other countries, lets bombard japan, they just got SDF.. they wont be able to hit us back. >:)" it will be a pretty shitty situation, if you ask me..

It is biased and a very specific perspective you're using just so you can say something. OMG Earthquake is reason to occupy Okinawa. Can't imagine maybe they actually want to help the Japanese?

And for your information those 'I IZ DESTROYERs' helicopter carriers of yours sure convince me Japan doesn't have a strong and capable military, starting with its navy.
(I'm Half Chinese, and not American btw)

Well, precisely. This might be a biased view, but then again, if you'd view the earthquake from a specific perspective, all the Japanese tragedy brought America was a new excuse to occupy Okinawa, as well as due to the enormous financial loses, any rumoured attempts of Japan to break the rule and start building its own military no longer have a future.